It could have been here. It could have been the Pirates and Lloyd McClendon.

This time, it was the Royals and Tony Pena.

The man Pirates fans remember as the affable, dependable catcher in the 1980s became the first manager to go this baseball season when he abruptly resigned Tuesday night after yet another Kansas City loss.

The Royals were 8-25 and had notched their 18th loss in their past 22 games when Pena walked away. Or ran, making a beeline for his native Dominican Republic to regain some peace and sanity.

All these years, it was easy to think of Pena as unflappable. He was flying high in the first full season of his first managerial gig in 2003. He had the Royals in contention in the American League Central into September and finished with 83 wins, Kansas City's first winning season since 1994. He was manager of the year.

Last year, the Royals traded Carlos Beltran because they couldn't afford to keep him, and the team lost a franchise-record 104 games as Pena's motivational skills were rendered useless with the team's lack of talent.

When things didn't improve this season, he had had enough.

We could easily go through the same thing here this summer. Both teams are at the low end of the payroll scale. Both have resorted to touting their young players.

Oh, with McClendon, the wording might be different. It might be a firing. From all accounts, Pena wasn't forced out.

But the reasons and the outcome would be the same.

There were rumblings -- OK, screams -- for McClendon's head when the Pirates started 8-16, including 3-9 at PNC Park. They were swept at home by a depleted San Francisco club before embarking on a 10-game road trip that surely many thought would sink McClendon's ship.

A 7-3 trek through Houston, Arizona and San Francisco might have zipped some lips for the moment, but you can bet McClendon won't be gloating when he returns to his home office for tonight's game against Milwaukee.

McClendon is a diehard optimist like Pena -- or at least like Pena used to be -- but less demonstrative. Yet McClendon knows how things are in baseball. He gets frustrated. He's not immune from an emotional rock bottom should the Pirates revert to early season form.

If it could happen to Pena, it could happen to anyone.

In a September 2003 visit with Pena when the Royals made a stop in Cleveland, he was effervescent.

"Nobody can take smiling away from me," he said.

Then he heaped all the credit for Kansas City's first decent season in years on the players and said he just lent a soft guiding hand.

"You have to learn how to approach each guy to get the best out of them," he said. "Thank God, it's worked. Sometimes, you have to go out and [cuss] them, and sometimes you have to baby-sit them. But most of the time what I like to do is just make them laugh. That is the way a human being can relieve their stress."

Pena's humor ran out this week.

In his first interview after resigning, Pena essentially told the Kansas City Star that the Royals' job had drained him until the needle was stuck below empty.

"The only thing I can say is, I gave everything I had," he said. "Baseball is about winning. We are not winning.

"I lost energy, and it's not fun. It's better to turn it over to somebody who's having fun."

All reasonably qualified baseball men who think steering the Royals would be a grand old time, raise your hands.

That's what I thought.

The Royals' players immediately stepped up to shoulder the blame.

"The guys had better open their eyes and notice that we're the cause of this," former Pirates outfielder Matt Stairs told the Star. "We're the reason Tony resigned. If we had played better baseball or smarter baseball, then we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Yeah, and if baseball had some semblance of financial balance, perhaps the Royals might have some real players beyond first baseman Mike Sweeney, giving Pena something to work with.

Stairs should know that. His most recent teams have been Kansas City, the Pirates and Milwaukee.

Pena didn't stand a chance long term.

The Pirates' situation similarly chewed up and spit out Jim Leyland. The financially lopsided world of baseball, where the Pirates and Royals are in the lower caste, will continue to do that to good or potentially good managers.

This time, it happened to Pena.

It easily could have happened here.

And still could.